The Interim Management Association recently released research showing that demand for interim managers has increased by 7%, despite the current economic crisis. This increase in demand was seen in both the public and private sector. In light of this new research, we spoke to a number of senior HR professionals to discover why interims are so important to businesses today.

“Interim managers are a vital element in our flexible workforce planning. Typically interim managers provide cover as permanent staff are moved to new areas (perhaps as a recruitment process is executed) and for fixed term projects that require specialist skills”, says Kevin Bishop, Group Head of Resourcing, Anglo American. He cited one of the most desirable things about interims is that they “are immediately available, generally over qualified for the role in question and can therefore add immediate value.”

Barry Hoffman, the UK HR Director for Computacenter told The Grapevineonline about a recent interim success story: “Recently, we had an interim manager review one of our business areas and make some recommendations. We implemented his suggestions and it's been successful. On the whole, I've found that interim managers are very experienced and talented people - the good ones are never out of work. It's an effective way of resourcing flexibly, which is obviously quite important in the current economic climate.”

Despite the National Lottery Commission being a small organisation, Head of HR Ann Smith says they sometimes use interims. Smith explains how useful interim managers can be: “The benefits of an interim manager are that they can bring a fresh perspective to an issue and a set of different skills. We have also found that using interim managers results in a transfer of skills and knowledge amongst other team members, creating an environment which facilitates improved organisational performance.”